Is Twittering a charitable purpose? 1

Finance | 6 Oct 2009

During a lull between questions at the Charity Commission’s annual public meeting last week, Simon Albury from the Royal Television Society asked the question we’d all been dying to know the answer to but were too afraid to ask.

“Two years ago,” he began, “I had an interesting conversation with the Commission about whether blogging could be educational.

“Now I want to know from the Commission, in order to save on lawyers’ fees, whether Twittering can be educational.”

John Williams, the Commission board member who was chairing the Q&A session, threw the query open to his fellow board members, appropriately cautioning them that they “must reply in 140 characters or less”.

After the laughter subsided, it fell to Kenneth Dibble, the Commission’s executive director of legal and compliance, to answer. “I’m not sure I know what it is, entirely,” he admitted to more laughter. Then, on a more serious note, he added: “The Commission has taken a broad view about what is educational. I think the content of the Twittering would be the key to that.”

Directory: Charity Commission

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Paul Sage
Managing director
Click4Causes
7 Oct 2009

Twittering can be educational, and if used effectively can significantly increase awareness of a charity cause. Click4Causes recently ran an event for fundraisers to educate on the use of all social media to help build content with new donors and volunteers. By blogging and tweeting in support of a cause significant new contact can be made online. The key is to be consistent and interesting when using twitter.

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